From bhaktin Elizaveta Khrestyan

Dear Srila Gurudeva,
Hare Krishna! Please accept my respectful obeisances in the dust of your lotus feet! All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
On this auspicious day of your Vyasa Puja I dared to write this letter to you, though fully realizing that I do not possess a slightest speck of heart purity that would allow me to glorify even a minor part of your qualities. However, avoiding an imperfect attempt to do that seems to me even a greater omission.
About six months have passed since I felt a heavy rain of Srila Prabhupada’s mercy showering upon my head for the first time. This happened during the Sadhu-Sanga Festival 2019, where you were very generously giving your association and sometimes doing it even without any words. At that time I have not started yet to take some conscious actions to get to know you better; nevertheless the way you were watching the children’s concert (you had delayed your departure specially for that reason), so serious and focused, made a great impression on me. I cherish that in my heart and try to recall it again and again, as I realize now this principle of “attentive meetings”, emphasized by you in your diaries and classes.
Another strong impression for me was the expression of your deep respect and compassion for each and everyone around you. This refers not only to such serious things as e.g. a birth in this material world, but also to less significant ones. That day your class was longer than it had been planned, and when you found out that it was long past prasadam time, you got upset that you were “causing inconveniences” to the devotees. You were leaving the pandal slowly, looking into everyone’s eyes (in fact, it felt like you were looking into the very soul) mercifully and attentively. I was also fortunate enough to receive your look of exceptional compassion. For me that look seemed to say, “What are you doing here (in the material world)? Wake up, wake up… “ And these words did not sound strict at all, but were filled with great compassion and concern.
It took me two months to fully realize what happened that day… I have experienced myself what it means that it is the guru who finds the disciple, not the disciple who finds the guru. And even if this is just my feeling, there is at least one thing that reveals your role to me in a completely unparalleled way. It is your devotion and endeavor in the service to your spiritual master. Only when I got to know you in person, I discovered a genuine desire to understand his mood and to become useful to him in myself. So I regularly read not only Srila Prabhupada’s books, but also books about him written by his disciples, because I think that I can better understand you by doing that.
I am so grateful to you for making Srila Prabhupadas personality more real for me by demonstrating what the relationship between guru and disciple shall be by your personal example. The greatest jewel for me is your quote of Srila Prabhupadas answer to a reporter asking how a leader of such a large movement manages to cope with all the difficulties; he said “I don’t see any difficulties, I only see the service to my spiritual master.” Thank you for the quote; to my mind that can be a real guideline in the spiritual life!
I am eternally grateful to you for your regular webinars from Vrindavan and your “Diaries of a traveling monk”. They fill my life with inspiration to chant more of the holy names and to do it more consciously, as well as to be more attentive to the devotees and to cultivate a mood of service to them, not a mood of enjoying their company.
Dear Srila Gurudeva, thank you for allowing my husband and me to start chanting your pranam two weeks ago. You gave us hope that one day we will be ready to obtain the qualities of a real disciple. We were feeling so much of your mercy showering on us that it seemed impossible to take all of it!
My most sincere prayer now is to become a good instrument in your hands. I beg you, please, bestow a shadow of a smile of your heart on me! Please, turn my life into an abode of Guru and Gauranga’s lotus feet! I need your blessings so much!
Offering more obeisances to your lotus feet and hoping to become a servant of the servants of the servants and to dedicate this life to Sri Krishna.Your servant, bhaktin Elizaveta